Sometimes it's the little things that catch you out!!

[CTXMedia]

I began using a new 300x250 Adsene ad unit earlier this year on CycleChat - on the right side of the second post in every thread. It made a good return, but when I upgraded to XF 1.2 and began using the Adsense responsive beta ad code I noticed that the in-post unit's revenue dropped off quite dramatically.

I left for a few weeks and it continued to drop (but then so had most of the other units) so I put it down to being new and needing advertisers to fill it. After about four weeks I checked again and it was still down and didn't seem to be recovering in the same way that the banner ads were. So I re-checked the ad code and it all seemed okay.

Last night I was browsing logged out - testing some new "guest" settings - and I noticed that the in-post ads weren't showing at anything larger than 200x200. Multiple page refreshes still didn't encourage the larger ad to appear, so I thought I'd re-check the ad code again, and that's when I found it:

<xen:hook name="ad_message_body" />
<xen:if is="{$post.position} % {$xenOptions.messagesPerPage} == 1 AND {$thread.reply_count} > 0 AND !{$visitor.user_id}">
<div style="background: #fafafa; margin-left: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; float: right; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #d7d7d7; border-radius: 6px;">
<div align="center">
<strong>Advert</strong><br>
<style>
.ad-name { width: 125px; height: 125px; }
@media(min-width: 400px) { .ad-name { width: 200px; height: 200px; } }
@media(min-width: 6600px) { .ad-name { width: 300px; height: 250px; } }
</style>
<script async src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- CycleChat Cycling Forum - in-content (second post in thread) - Responsive -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle ad-name"
  style="display:inline-block"
  data-ad-client="ca-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
  data-ad-slot="xxxxxxxxxxx"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>
</div>
</xen:if>

I must have checked the code in this template 5 times and didn't spot it, and it wasn't until I did a "compare" in Notepad++ with the same template snippet from one of my other forums that I found it - and I could have kicked myself when I did. One little extra character, that's all it took to drop revenue.

Sometimes, no matter how hard or smart you think you're working - it's the little things that catch you out!!

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[ARealRiley]

I've checked it more than 5 times and I still don't see it. Care to clue us in?

 

[Martok]

I've checked it more than 5 times and I still don't see it. Care to clue us in?

One of the min-widths is a little too large

 

[CTXMedia]

Lol ... little is an understatement ...

Although you could get quite a few shortcut icons on a desktop that size!!!

 

[Slavik]

(min-width: 6600px)?

 

[Paul B]

That's for Double UHD displays